Tyan s2466 stability

Tyan s2466 stability

[SCoTT SMeDLeY]

Hi all,

I'm considering investing in a dual-AMD system using Tyan's s2466
motherboard. I'm interested in hearing how others have found the
stability of this board using recent 2.4.x kernels.

I've scanned the archives & there doesn't appear to be any reports
on problems with this board, so I guess I'm hoping to hear some
positive reports ...

I'm also interested in hearing reports about how the board performs
with with non-ECC (non-registered) RAM as the board has been
documented to work with such an arrangement. I'm happy to fork
out for ECC RAM, but is it worth it?

Please reply to: ss@aao.gov.au

SCoTT. :)
--
ss@aao.gov.au

Re: Tyan s2466 stability

[Richard B. Johnson]

On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, SCoTT SMeDLeY wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I'm considering investing in a dual-AMD system using Tyan's s2466
> motherboard. I'm interested in hearing how others have found the
> stability of this board using recent 2.4.x kernels.
> 
> I've scanned the archives & there doesn't appear to be any reports
> on problems with this board, so I guess I'm hoping to hear some
> positive reports ...
> 
> I'm also interested in hearing reports about how the board performs
> with with non-ECC (non-registered) RAM as the board has been
> documented to work with such an arrangement. I'm happy to fork
> out for ECC RAM, but is it worth it?
> 
> Please reply to: ss@aao.gov.au
> 

We got one here about two weeks ago. It had 2 AMD processors plus
2 'sticks' of RAM (Don't know how much). It was originally tested
on an IDE drive booting Windows/2000. It worked, but a CPU had to
be removed because W$ trashes drives when using two CPUs.

I got to play with it for an hour. I put one of my BusLogic SCSI
controllers in one of the 33MHz slots and booted Linux off an existing
SCSI drive. It did not run long before crashing (I booted a SMP
kernel). Again, I booted it with only one CPU and it did not crash.

I don't know if it's an AMD problem or a Motherboard problem. Perhaps
AMD processors don't work well in SMP, I've always used Intel with
success.

Nevertheless, I was entirely unimpressed with this "MPX" board. It
didn't have built-in SCSI like older Tyan boards that I currently use
and it didn't work very well. My AGP graphics card (G-Force) didn't
work either (in graphics) although I'm told that 'newer' ones do.

It is also kinda expensive (over US$200).


Cheers,
Dick Johnson

Penguin : Linux version 2.4.18 on an i686 machine (797.90 BogoMips).

                 Windows-2000/Professional isn't.

Re: Tyan s2466 stability

[Alan Cox]

On Tue, 2002-07-16 at 12:58, Richard B. Johnson wrote:
> We got one here about two weeks ago. It had 2 AMD processors plus
> 2 'sticks' of RAM (Don't know how much). It was originally tested
> on an IDE drive booting Windows/2000. It worked, but a CPU had to
> be removed because W$ trashes drives when using two CPUs.

More likely your set up was faulty

> I got to play with it for an hour. I put one of my BusLogic SCSI
> controllers in one of the 33MHz slots and booted Linux off an existing

Sounds like hardware/PSU stuff to me

> Nevertheless, I was entirely unimpressed with this "MPX" board. It
> didn't have built-in SCSI like older Tyan boards that I currently use
> and it didn't work very well. My AGP graphics card (G-Force) didn't
> work either (in graphics) although I'm told that 'newer' ones do.

I'm very happy with my MPX based board. The docs sucked, the BIOS
socked, the lack of onboard USB sucked, but the rest is very nice and it
seems stable enough.

Power (430W PSU or bigger - and the right ones to get sufficient current
on low voltage lines) and heat are big problems. I'm very happy with
mine as a server box. As a desktop, or living in the same room as me I'd
say definitely not.

As to the lack of SCSI. I have an Adaptec/Dell Obsidian 4 port 64bit PCI
SCSI controller plugged into it. It outperforms onboard scsi controllers
so I don't feel the need for an onboard scsi controller to chain CD-ROMS
too.

Re: Tyan s2466 stability

[Maxwell Spangler]

On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, SCoTT SMeDLeY wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I'm considering investing in a dual-AMD system using Tyan's s2466
> motherboard. I'm interested in hearing how others have found the
> stability of this board using recent 2.4.x kernels.
> 
> I've scanned the archives & there doesn't appear to be any reports
> on problems with this board, so I guess I'm hoping to hear some
> positive reports ...
> 
> I'm also interested in hearing reports about how the board performs
> with with non-ECC (non-registered) RAM as the board has been
> documented to work with such an arrangement. I'm happy to fork
> out for ECC RAM, but is it worth it?
> 
> Please reply to: ss@aao.gov.au

I have a one of these as my primary desktop system.  Configuration is:

Antec Performance Plus 880 (MT + 430W high quality power supply)
Tyan S2466N motherborad
Two AMD Athlon MP 1800+ chips
Corsair PC2100 ECC Registered DIMMs 512M each x 2
Matrox G450 AGP
Adaptec 2940AU SCSI PCI + HP cdr
Ensonic ES1731 PCI audio
onboard 3com networking
Opti PCI USB card
IBM 120GXP
Acer 40X ATAPI cdrom

1) The CPU fans, boxed AMD retail fans, are really loud.

2) The system produces a lot of heat.  It's 100F in the very top of my case 
right now.

3) Performance is very, very good, but... for basic Netscape, xterm, pine, 
etc, this system doesn't feel much different from my dual P2-400 system.

4) mp3 encoding is _really_ fast :)

5) This system has been completely stable for me, no crashes or surprise 
lockups.

6) I have only one issue yet to be resolved: SCSI "loss of streaming" errors 
when trying to burn cd-rs.  I haven't taken the time to figure out what the 
problem is there but the fact that others aren't reporting it suggests 
configuration or something else specific to my system and not indicative of 
the MPX chipset or dual Athlon setup, etc.

7) I like the fact that Alan is using the same chipset as me for his 
development :)

8) My RAM, PC2100 ECC registered was $215 or so from crucial.com, and is now 
about $150.  It's worth it to buy quality RAM and not have to worry about 
whether your system problems are being caused buy RAM.. Completely worth it.

I'm very happy with dual Athlon and would recommend them to others.

-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maxwell Spangler                                                
Program Writer                                              
Greenbelt, Maryland, U.S.A.                         
Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area 

Re: Tyan s2466 stability

[Alan Cox]

On Tue, 2002-07-16 at 15:08, Maxwell Spangler wrote:
> 6) I have only one issue yet to be resolved: SCSI "loss of streaming" errors 
> when trying to burn cd-rs.  I haven't taken the time to figure out what the 
> problem is there but the fact that others aren't reporting it suggests 
> configuration or something else specific to my system and not indicative of 
> the MPX chipset or dual Athlon setup, etc.
> 

That one isn a unique report. MPX boards seem to have problems burning
CD-R's. I have no idea why

Re: Tyan s2466 stability

[maxwax]

On 16 Jul 2002, Alan Cox wrote:

> On Tue, 2002-07-16 at 15:08, Maxwell Spangler wrote:
> > 6) I have only one issue yet to be resolved: SCSI "loss of streaming" errors 
> > when trying to burn cd-rs.  I haven't taken the time to figure out what the 
> > problem is there but the fact that others aren't reporting it suggests 
> > configuration or something else specific to my system and not indicative of 
> > the MPX chipset or dual Athlon setup, etc.
> > 
> 
> That one isn a unique report. MPX boards seem to have problems burning
> CD-R's. I have no idea why

I thought my SCSI problems were only showing up with my cd-rw drive because 
that's all I currently have online.

You're stating that the problems reported have been with cd-rw drives, but not 
with hard drives, scanners, etc, using the same SCSI equipment on the same 
systems?

I had assumed that my failure to be able to use my cd-rw drive would prevent 
me from [writing] to any type of SCSI drive reliably.  I even thought I had an 
HP SCSI DDS drive that failed along similar reasons..

Can I do anything to help provide more information to diagnose and resolve 
this?

Replacement of my HP SCSI cdrw drive with a nice new ATAPI 40x writer is not a 
problem, but the fear that there is an open issue in my system in something as 
significant as SCSI is bothersome..

Thanks!

-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maxwell Spangler                                                
Program Writer                                              
Greenbelt, Maryland, U.S.A.                         
Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area 

Re: Tyan s2466 stability

[Alan Cox]

On Tue, 2002-07-16 at 15:26, maxwax@speakeasy.net wrote:
> > That one isn a unique report. MPX boards seem to have problems burning
> > CD-R's. I have no idea why
> 
> I thought my SCSI problems were only showing up with my cd-rw drive because 
> that's all I currently have online.

I've seen it with IDE burners too. I don't know what the cause is

Re: Tyan s2466 stability

[Kurt Garloff]

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On Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 04:47:48PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Tue, 2002-07-16 at 15:26, maxwax@speakeasy.net wrote:
> > > That one isn a unique report. MPX boards seem to have problems burning
> > > CD-R's. I have no idea why
> > 
> > I thought my SCSI problems were only showing up with my cd-rw drive because 
> > that's all I currently have online.
> 
> I've seen it with IDE burners too. I don't know what the cause is

Strange SMI stuff, maybe?
Bugs with PCI arbitration that are recovered from but take time?

You've probably already looked into those, though.

Regards,
-- 
Kurt Garloff                   <kurt@garloff.de>         [Eindhoven, NL]
Physics: Plasma simulations    <K.Garloff@TUE.NL>     [TU Eindhoven, NL]
Linux: SCSI, Security          <garloff@suse.de>    [SuSE Nuernberg, DE]
 (See mail header or public key servers for PGP2 and GPG public keys.)

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Re: Tyan s2466 stability

[Alan Cox]

On Tue, 2002-07-16 at 21:51, Kurt Garloff wrote:
> > I've seen it with IDE burners too. I don't know what the cause is
> 
> Strange SMI stuff, maybe?
> Bugs with PCI arbitration that are recovered from but take time?
> 
> You've probably already looked into those, though.

I've read the errata but thats not given me any clues. The box is fast,
including PCI bandwidth measurements but neither PCI card or SCSI
streaming to tape or CD-R works well. The motherboard IDE works a treat
and the 64bit slots give me excellent performance (but thats a raid card
so I can't yet use it for tape)

Re: Tyan s2466 stability

[Kurt Garloff]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2172 bytes --]

Hi Alan,

On Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 11:10:46PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Tue, 2002-07-16 at 21:51, Kurt Garloff wrote:
> > Strange SMI stuff, maybe?
> > Bugs with PCI arbitration that are recovered from but take time?
> > 
> > You've probably already looked into those, though.
> 
> I've read the errata but thats not given me any clues. The box is fast,
> including PCI bandwidth measurements but neither PCI card or SCSI
> streaming to tape or CD-R works well. The motherboard IDE works a treat
> and the 64bit slots give me excellent performance (but thats a raid card
> so I can't yet use it for tape)

c't, a good german computer mag, has done some test of Dual MoBos a month
ago. (c't, 12/02, p.188). They performed some low-level benchmarks ... on
PCI ... transfer rates on different PCI slots with and without parallel
access to IDE. They used RocketDrive (RD), a solid-state HD, to test.
Funnily, all mainboards had one or another low number in there. For the Tyan
MPX (S2466N-4M), it was writing to RD in 32bit slot with only 29 MB/s
without concurrent IDE access and 24MB/s with concurrent IDE access.
Of course way enough for burning CDs. Two more low numbers: When writing
to RD in 64 bit PCI slot, the IDE only made 19/20 MB/s for read/write.

Those tests were performed under Win AFAICS, so maybe the PCI stuff under
Linux is set up differently ...

These numbers itself are no reason to worry, of course, but they may
indicate that arbitration may not be fair and may leave one device without
data for more than a short moment. Current CD-writers are like 16x with
a 4MB buffer, which means they should not be left w/o data for more than
1.7s and throughput should not go below 2.4 MB/s.

OK, this is really unlikely a PCI implementation would be that unfair with
test engineers noticing. Maybe strange occasional PCI aborts causing a long
recovery ...
Just a strange idea, of course.

Regards,
-- 
Kurt Garloff  <garloff@suse.de>                          Eindhoven, NL
GPG key: See mail header, key servers         Linux kernel development
SuSE Linux AG, Nuernberg, DE                            SCSI, Security

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

Re: Tyan s2466 stability

[Kelsey Hudson]

On 16 Jul 2002, Alan Cox wrote:

> On Tue, 2002-07-16 at 21:51, Kurt Garloff wrote:
> > > I've seen it with IDE burners too. I don't know what the cause is
> > 
> > Strange SMI stuff, maybe?
> > Bugs with PCI arbitration that are recovered from but take time?
> > 
> > You've probably already looked into those, though.
> 
> I've read the errata but thats not given me any clues. The box is fast,
> including PCI bandwidth measurements but neither PCI card or SCSI
> streaming to tape or CD-R works well. The motherboard IDE works a treat
> and the 64bit slots give me excellent performance (but thats a raid card
> so I can't yet use it for tape)

according to the amd760mpx datasheet, stuff on the 32/33MHz bus isn't 
allowed to busmaster while the 64/66MHz bus is operating at 66MHz. so that 
means the 66MHz bus needs to be throttled to 33MHz either via a 3.3V 33MHz 
card stuck in it, or that pretty blue jumper stuffed on the appropriate 
FORCE 33MHz header on the board.

these kind of problems will cause things like loss of streaming due to the 
inability to busmaster. both of my dual athlon systems here at cti have 
that jumper shorted. sure, i still run into problems, but then again, what 
chipset for amd processors doesn't have a whole load of issues? overall, i 
can't say i'm satisfied with any athlon chipset on the market right now. 
but, the 760mpx has far fewer issues than, say, any garden variety via 
board. (no comments from the peanut gallery -- my mind is made up and in 
this respect, your opinion means nothing to me. via sucks. end of story). 
but, i digress.

aside from these rather annoying pci quirks and a sensors issue (who in 
their right mind assigns the same i2c address for two different chips?!) 
the board works quite well in the configuration i've got it in (beowulf 
cluster).

oh and all the devices on this board are fully acpi controlled. let it be 
known that i hate acpi, and especially the headaches that it causes me. 
the stock bios also sucks quite vigorously and should be avoided at all 
costs (read: upgrade to the latest bios rev immediately).

if you need help integrating one of these boards into your system i may be 
able to provide some insight.

good luck.

 Kelsey Hudson                                       khudson@compendium.us
 Software Engineer/UNIX Systems Administrator
 Compendium Technologies, Inc                               (619) 725-0771
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Tyan s2466 stability

[Kelledin]

On Thursday 18 July 2002 07:27 pm, Kelsey Hudson wrote:
> according to the amd760mpx datasheet, stuff on the 32/33MHz
> bus isn't allowed to busmaster while the 64/66MHz bus is
> operating at 66MHz. so that means the 66MHz bus needs to be
> throttled to 33MHz either via a 3.3V 33MHz card stuck in it,
> or that pretty blue jumper stuffed on the appropriate FORCE
> 33MHz header on the board.

VERY nice info, thanx. ;)

I'll have to save this info for myself; I've always been planning 
to get a dual Athlon setup sooner or later.

> these kind of problems will cause things like loss of
> streaming due to the inability to busmaster. both of my dual
> athlon systems here at cti have that jumper shorted. sure, i
> still run into problems, but then again, what chipset for amd
> processors doesn't have a whole load of issues? overall, i
> can't say i'm satisfied with any athlon chipset on the market
> right now. but, the 760mpx has far fewer issues than, say, any
> garden variety via board. (no comments from the peanut gallery
> -- my mind is made up and in this respect, your opinion means
> nothing to me. via sucks. end of story). but, i digress.

Yes, VIA sucks.  I've been lucky so far (all my VIA chipsets can 
be shoe-horned to stability), but it hasn't always been easy.

> aside from these rather annoying pci quirks and a sensors
> issue (who in their right mind assigns the same i2c address
> for two different chips?!) the board works quite well in the
> configuration i've got it in (beowulf cluster).
>
> oh and all the devices on this board are fully acpi
> controlled. let it be known that i hate acpi, and especially
> the headaches that it causes me. the stock bios also sucks
> quite vigorously and should be avoided at all costs (read:
> upgrade to the latest bios rev immediately).
>
> if you need help integrating one of these boards into your
> system i may be able to provide some insight.

Is this motherboard using the Phoenix, AMI, or Award BIOS?  Award 
is nice and simple and solid; AMI is ok, but often goes too much 
for pretty looks; Phoenix SUCKS in every way possible.

What other issues have you encountered with this board (and other 
760MP/MPX boards)?  So far I've heard of an issue with 3com 
Gigabit cards on some specific model of Tyan 760MP/MPX board, 
but no definite details.  I've also heard of lm_sensors people 
having a fair amount of trouble with it.

-- 
Kelledin
"If a server crashes in a server farm and no one pings it, does 
it still cost four figures to fix?"

Re: Tyan s2466 stability

[Kelsey Hudson]

On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Kelledin wrote:

> On Thursday 18 July 2002 07:27 pm, Kelsey Hudson wrote:
> > according to the amd760mpx datasheet, stuff on the 32/33MHz
> > bus isn't allowed to busmaster while the 64/66MHz bus is
> > operating at 66MHz. so that means the 66MHz bus needs to be
> > throttled to 33MHz either via a 3.3V 33MHz card stuck in it,
> > or that pretty blue jumper stuffed on the appropriate FORCE
> > 33MHz header on the board.
> 
> VERY nice info, thanx. ;)
> 
> I'll have to save this info for myself; I've always been planning 
> to get a dual Athlon setup sooner or later.

Yeah, that was probably the biggest issue we had integrating these 
machines. That, and the need for a monstrous power supply to feed those 
power-hungry CPUs.

[ .. ]
> > if you need help integrating one of these boards into your
> > system i may be able to provide some insight.
> 
> Is this motherboard using the Phoenix, AMI, or Award BIOS?  Award 
> is nice and simple and solid; AMI is ok, but often goes too much 
> for pretty looks; Phoenix SUCKS in every way possible.

Alas, it's PhoenixBIOS. Phoenix bought Award, though, so I'd expect Award 
to be phased out :(

> What other issues have you encountered with this board (and other 
> 760MP/MPX boards)?  So far I've heard of an issue with 3com 
> Gigabit cards on some specific model of Tyan 760MP/MPX board, 
> but no definite details.  I've also heard of lm_sensors people 
> having a fair amount of trouble with it.

This is my only experience with a dual Athlon board. There were some minor 
issues in kernel-space when we first bought these machines; using a recent 
(>2.4.18) kernel causes these problems to mostly disappear.

I helped the lm_sensors team with the sensors on this board; after 
extensive experimentation I managed to get both of the sensors chips 
(which are at the same I2C address ... WTF was tyan thinking?!) working 
and displaying data. I still am unsure which temperature sensor monitors 
which peripheral, but I've got a pretty good idea of it.

If something strange comes up, LMK and I might have a solution for you.

-- 
 Kelsey Hudson                                       khudson@compendium.us
 Software Engineer/UNIX Systems Administrator
 Compendium Technologies, Inc                               (619) 725-0771
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

RE: Tyan s2466 stability

[Stephen Lee]

I have the A7M266-D with an AOPEN 24x10x32 IDE CDRW and haven't had a
single failure yet while burning CD-R(W)'s.  By the way, are you still
using this same motherboard?

Steve


-----Original Message-----
From: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
[mailto:linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of Alan Cox
Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 10:29 AM
To: Maxwell Spangler
Cc: SCoTT SMeDLeY; linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org; ss@aao.gov.au
Subject: Re: Tyan s2466 stability

On Tue, 2002-07-16 at 15:08, Maxwell Spangler wrote:
> 6) I have only one issue yet to be resolved: SCSI "loss of streaming"
errors 
> when trying to burn cd-rs.  I haven't taken the time to figure out
what the 
> problem is there but the fact that others aren't reporting it suggests

> configuration or something else specific to my system and not
indicative of 
> the MPX chipset or dual Athlon setup, etc.
> 

That one isn a unique report. MPX boards seem to have problems burning
CD-R's. I have no idea why


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